Lee Pearson triumphed in the Paralympic dressage to claim his 12th gold, and followed it with a heartfelt plea
“Love has to prevail, really. Whatever shape or form, I think love has to prevail. If you’re born with a disability, if you have a child with a disability, if you’re born with same-sex attraction, if your daughter comes out or your son, then just love them. Nobody wants to be different but we have to embrace different people because that’s society, that’s the world. Those different people they’re not going anywhere. So you can say it’s illegal, you can make them feel awful, but somewhere in the world another gay boy or girl will be born. Somewhere in the world someone will be born with no limbs. Do you know what I mean? Life goes on and it’s silly in this day and age when we have countries that are still in the stone age, as we say, 100 years behind. But I’m just a horse rider. Promise.”
Some horse rider. On Thursday Sir Lee Pearson scored a comprehensive triumph in the Grade II individual test in dressage, to win the 12th Paralympic gold medal of his career. He did so on the back of a new partner, Breezer (son of Bacardi), and ahead of his great Austrian rival, Pepo Puch. In the stifling heat of the Tokyo afternoon, with the weather warning dropping just below the level local organisers term a “danger”, Pearson and Breezer, well, breezed home.